Diego Costa accepts August accolade

Diego Costa’s fine first weeks in English football have earned the striker the Barclays Player of the Month award.

The Spanish international found the net four times in the three games he played in August, scoring Chelsea’s first goal in each of the wins.

On accepting the trophy, Diego Costa said: ‘I’m very happy to win this award. It is important to begin well at a new club and I’m pleased with both my start to the season and also the team’s, which is the most important thing.

‘I hope to continue scoring goals to help out the team and keep making our fantastic supporters happy. I thank my team-mates as they have helped me win this award.’

The other players who were nominated for the Premier League award for August were his Chelsea team-mate Cesc Fabregas, plus two from this Saturday’s opponents Swansea City, Nathan Dyer and Gylfi Sigurdsson, and Aston Villa's Andreas Weimann.

Also this week Petr Cech collected the Premier League Golden Glove trophy he won at the end of last season.

Cech shared the honour with Arsenal’s Wojciech Szczesny with the two goalkeepers collecting 16 clean sheets each over the course of the 2013/14 season.

‘I am very happy to receive my third Golden Glove award,’ Cech said.

‘It’s always a pleasure to receive individual awards but I know that it would not be possible without my team-mates who work very hard to ensure the team keeps a clean sheet.’